Selim Khimshiashvili

His seizure of power in the Pashalik of Akhaltsikh and attempts to bring all of "Ottoman Georgia" under his rule led to a fallout with the sultan's government and a war which ended in Selim's death.

His staunch opposition to the central Ottoman government led him into clandestine negotiations with the Russians through Mamia V Gurieli, Prince of Guria, whose sister was married to Selim's son Abdi Bey.

As 15,000 Ottoman troops under Pehlivan Ibrahim Pasha, serasker of Erzurum, approached, Selim fled Akhaltsikhe to the mountains of Adjara and entrenched himself in the castle of Khikhani, which fell after a two-month-long siege on 31 May 1815.

Selim's four sons—Abdi (Abdullah; 1786–1859), Ahmed (1781–1836), Husein, and Dede (Dursun)—took shelter in Guria until the Ottoman punitive force left Adjara in 1818.

[1][2][3] Subsequently, they came to rule several areas in "Ottoman Georgia": Abdi Bey in Shavsheti (Şavşat), Ahmed in Upper Adjara, Husein in the Andzavi valley, and Dede in Taoskari.